RICHMOND — When Sister Barbara Faille and Sister Kathryn Flanagan called to schedule an appointment with me at the Berkshire Sampler, they didn’t say what they wanted to talk about. They were teachers at St. Joseph’s, and although I’m not Catholic, I’d heard plenty of stories about strict nuns and finger-tapping in the classroom. What had I done?
My fears were completely unfounded. Two lovely ladies in the plaid skirts that were popular in the late 1970s showed up right on time, secretly wondering if the sampler would feature a story about high school doing a 1920s-style day.
I said the sampler would do that. And I was so enchanted by these two nuns – the Sisters of St. Joseph – I wanted to write it myself. It was so much fun, the teenagers had so much fun and the nuns loved it. The plan included lessons, flapper clothes, music and of course the Charleston. And the Sisters of St. Joseph pulled out their traditional black and white robes for the day.
It was the beginning of one of those sporadic friendships as I followed their volunteer activities beyond teaching at St. Joe. When Sister Kathryn died a few years ago and Sister Barbara died earlier this month, they left behind a legacy of helping others.
The two were driving forces behind the creation of St. Joseph’s Kitchen, which provided lunch not only to the hungry but also to those in need, until the leaders decided to no longer use the student cafeteria for this project. So the South Congregational Church’s hungry food program was renamed St. Joseph’s Kitchen, and Sister Kathryn befriended a new group of volunteers, a group of Protestants who shared her goal.
When Sister Barbara left school, she went to St. Charles Church in Pittsfield as a pastoral assistant, where she established the parish food bank and taught the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. She was also active in the secular world, serving on the Police Chief Search Committee in 1991, the Board of Trustees of Our Lady of the Elms College, the Board of Directors of Downey Side, and the Capitol Theater Advisory Committee. She and Sister Kathryn both received the Ministry In Community Action Honoree Award.
On a personal level, we had our own stories about Sister Barbara. Her sense of humor and wide smile were never better than when she joked with my husband, who wrote movie reviews as part of his job at Eagle, about the packages of movies she picked up and delivered to her father, the manager of the Union Square Theater in Pittsfield. She was amused by being asked to transport who knows what R-rated and salacious scenes around Pittsfield. She did not open those packages.
One time when we needed a priest – at a time when many of the most traditional Catholic priests were unwilling to officiate at marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics – I called Sister Barbara. Two days later she reported a success and years of sporadic contact with the late Father Geoffrey Deeker began. After meeting Father Geoff, my husband once said, “Keep me away from that man. He could make me a Catholic.”
Sister Barbara, a North Adams native, has had a long career in educating others and in her own education, earning two bachelor’s degrees, a master’s in English and certificates from Catholic University, Georgetown and Carnegie-Mellon. But most of all, she knew about people and saw how the way people were believing was changing from going to church to, as she once said, “developing a calling as people to do good works, works of the gospel.” She added, “It’s not that they’re diminishing God – they’re living their faith, they know what their faith is, they don’t have to sit down and feed the gospel.”
It was a beautiful day when the nurses came into my office in plaid skirts.
Ruth Bass is an award-winning journalist. Your website is ruthbass.com. Opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of The Berkshire Eagle.
